


Tumblr Headcanons

by EvieSmallwood



Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvieSmallwood/pseuds/EvieSmallwood
Summary: My headcanons from tumblr (@richiehoezier). All Stranger Things.





	1. July 4th

On the Fourth of July, the Wheelers and Sinclairs light off fireworks in the middle of the cul-de-sac. The kids chase each other around those screaming ones, which light up in a fountain of sparks. Ted barbecues, and Dustin coaxes them into trying beer in the basement (which ends in them all spitting it out and proclaiming that it “tastes like piss”).

  
The teens spend some time in the house. Nancy helps her mom make salad and washes up. Then the three of them sneak away and drive for a little while. They park on a small hill, where they have a perfect view of the suburbs and the fireworks which still light up the sky. They lay down a blanket in the back of the truck Nancy’s been driving (since her mom needs the station wagon and she managed to save up enough for something, at least). They curl up together and watch the night explode with color. Jon hums a Smiths song under his breath, and for a while, they forget about the bad stuff.


	2. Holly

Holly Wheeler almost considers herself an only child. After all, her siblings only ever come home for the holidays, and sometimes a week or so in the summer time. She barely sees them, and they’re mostly too busy to call.

But she hears stories, like the rest of the town. Stories of the kids who got mixed up with the government, and the boy who came back to life. She ignores them, because she doesn’t want to believe them, and she never asks. Nonetheless, it makes her sort of proud.

Holly Wheeler almost considers herself an only child. Almost. She doesn’t when she and Nancy sneak up to her room while their mother makes dinner and talk for hours and hours. She doesn’t when she’s thirteen and Mike teaches her to play D&D. She doesn’t when Steve Harrington, who might as well be her brother, too, plays dolls and dress up and makes forts with her—and, when she’s older, teaches her to cook and play guitar. She doesn’t, even, when El tells her all she knows about makeup, even though they both just wear it for fun. Or when Lucas Sinclair builds a model rocket with her in the backyard, or Dustin Henderson helps her with her homework, or Will draws her a portrait, or Max teaches her to drive.

No, Holly isn’t an only child. She has too many siblings for her own good, and that’s just fine by her.


	3. Fort of Solitude

Mike and Eleven often sit in the field behind Hop’s trailer, talking. El reads, or journals, and Mike does homework or plans campaigns. It’s peaceful and bright and simple—until the boys and Max find them there one day.

  
After that, it becomes mostly theirs but sometimes everyone’s. The six of them have water ballon fights and build a gigantic open fort, which somehow looks kind of beautiful, with the sheer white curtains Joyce gives El to use, and the outdoor lights Hop buys.

  
It becomes a sanctuary for them, not unlike Castle Byers—which is sought out less in respect of Will, but used sometimes. It’s a place to cry and laugh and think. It’s the Fort of Solitude, and it’s almost like a home.


	4. Summer

On a hot summer night, the kids set up a tent in Dustin’s backyard. It’s barely big enough for all of them, but when they lay out their sleeping bags, it’s almost like one big bed.

  
They tell ghost stories and play truth or dare by a fire that Dustin’s dad helps them make. They roast marshmallows, get their hands sticky, and laugh too much. Mike and El hold hands, and he even wraps his arm around her shoulder as they sit there in a circle.

  
When the fire goes out, they lay on their backs and talk about their futures and the stars. There are so many of them, just like there are so many roads for each of them to take. Max starts crying about it first, because she’s already losing Steve and doesn’t ever want to lose any of them. But they all promise to always stay friends, to always love one another. They take the vow a few minutes past midnight, and carve their initials into the large oak tree in the yard, using a flashlight to see.

  
When they finally fall asleep, huddled up in the tent, the sprinklers kick on. They wake up yelling and screaming, but it eventually fades into laughter. And then they’re running across the lawn, getting their feet muddy and ruining their pajamas. But it’s okay, because it’ll all last forever.


	5. Lucas (Poetry)

Lucas Sinclair writes poetry. The poems, at first, usually aren’t long—they’re scrawled in the margins of his science notebook or written in pen on the palm of his hand. They’re washed off or ripped out by the end of the day.

  
When he’s twelve, and Eleven disappears, he writes a long poem. It has eleven lines, in five stanzas, for the five days he knew her. He composes it on a piece of stationary from his father’s desk. It’s littered with tears, and smudges. He puts it in a shoe box under his bed.

  
Through the years, the shoe box collection grows larger and larger, until he has more than one. Most of the poems are just scraps and lines, but some are like molten gold poured from his heart onto a page, full of the richness of feeling; hurt and love and life.

  
The day they he leaves for college, Lucas Sinclair folds up that eleven line poem and sticks it in an envelope. He mails it.  
The next day, El Byers is hunched over in bed, tears in her eyes as she reads these beautiful words. It’s signed simply: for a friend, from a friend.

  
But she would recognise his handwriting anywhere.


	6. Dustin (Fishing)

Dustin Henderson goes fishing with his father almost every weekend. He enjoys it for two reasons: one, the quality time with his dad, and two, he’s good at it.

  
He likes sitting in silence and feeling the boat rock beneath him. He likes the feeling of reeling in a trout, and the proud smile he ears from his dad. But he never keeps the fish, of course; they’re always returned safely and soundly to the water.

  
When he was younger, he would name them. After a time that stopped, because he ran out of ideas. But one Sunday, as he’s releasing his catch back into the lake, he thinks of the perfect name: Eleven.


	7. OT3: Roadtrip

The day they graduate from high school, Steve buys this crappy old RV from the 70s—one of the windows is cracked and held together with duct tape, and the transmission always has trouble starting. He, Nancy, and Jon spend about five days fixing it up and packing.

  
And then they take a road trip.  
It’s messy, all of it; the bed is never made and they can often be found sprawled out on it together—hair sticking to their faces from sweat, noses pressed against cheeks and arms wrapped around waists. It’s too small for all of them, but they make it work.

  
There are dishes in the little sink and clothes hanging off the shower curtain rail in the tiny square bathroom. Steve barbecues, and nearly sets the whole thing on fire. Sometimes the toast is burnt in the morning, other times Jon manages to climb over the kitchenette in time to make it to the counter.

  
On cool sunny days they spread out a blanket and lay in the light, braiding hair and flowers and laughing—drinking too many beers. Nancy takes polaroids. By the time they return in the fall, there’s not enough room on the fridge for all of those photos.

  
At night, sometimes, when Nancy falls asleep, the boys will climb on top of the RV and look at the stars. They talk about the monsters ahead and the ones they left behind. There’s never enough road to block out those bad memories and dreams, but they do a pretty good job of trying.


	8. Father's Day

Will and Jon don’t celebrate Father’s Day—they didn’t even when Lonnie lived with them. In those days, Joyce would slam a 6-pack on the coffee table and walk straight out of the house with her sons. They buy a pizza and eat it, seated on the hood of the Pinto, while Jon took pictures and Will rambled about constellations.

  
When Jon asked, once, why they never got anything for Lonnie (back when he tried to care), Joyce said: “The gift is him being without us. It’s what he wants, baby.”

  
Years later, they keep up their tradition of pizza and talking and laughter, and Lonnie keeps his; beer and television. And loneliness.

* * *

 

Mike and Nancy always celebrate Father’s Day. Nancy helps her mother bake a cake, and Mike shottily wraps gifts for their dad. Most years, Ted stays late at work and doesn’t come home until Mike, Nancy and Karen are fast asleep on the couch. He eats leftovers in silence, watching them doze, and wonders what it would be like to know them.

  
In the later years, Father’s Day becomes a day of mourning; the three Wheeler kids seem to drown in the lack of what they could so easily have. Even though he’s there, he’s not their father—he doesn’t deserve a hot minute, much less a whole day.

  
The Byers and Wheelers don’t celebrate Father’s Day. Everyone is pretty okay with that.


	9. Steve & Mike

On a lonely summer evening, after the barbecue coals are grey and the popsicles have been eaten (or in Holly’s case, abandoned and melted), and Mike’s friends race one another to their houses, he sits quietly in his bedroom—but this time, he isn’t even thinking of El. He’s just sad. He’s _alone_.

  
But then Steve Harrington knocks on the doorframe. Mike looks up, quickly wiping his tears. “Yeah?”

  
Steve frowns and sits down next to Mike. The little bed creaks, and it crosses both of their minds that soon, he’ll have to get a new one. “What’s up, kid?”

  
“The sky,” Mike retorts. They both laugh, shoulders bumping.

  
“It’ll be okay,” Steve promises, and somehow, Mike is able to believe him.


	10. Nancy & Jon: Coca-Cola

Nancy and Jon standing by the Coca-Cola vending machine late at night. The pool is full, lit, and gently lapping against the concrete with the breeze. She has a blanket wrapped around her, and he’s crying. They’re both smoking cigarettes.

“I miss them,” she whispers.

  
“Me too.”

  
But they can’t even call. It’s not safe. All they can do is send letters with no return addresses.


	11. OT3: A Day in the Life

In the morning, she wakes up to the smell of coffee and Steve’s melodic voice echoing down the hall. Nancy takes a moment to just breathe, turning onto her side as the white quilt warms her. Jonathan’s chest rises and falls evenly. She touches the stubble that’s formed there over the last two days ( _he’s been so busy lately, he needs this rest_ ). Silently and carefully she removes herself from their bed—a California king which suits them just fine—and meets Steve in the kitchen. He grins when he sees her, places the metal watering can down, and sweeps her into a dance. Nancy laughs. Her socks have no traction on the wooden floor, and so she’s holding on to him; trusting him.

  
In the afternoon, he wipes down the chalkboard as his students file out, all talking over one another. He is left alone, for a moment, in silence. Steve tucks his hands into the pockets of his tweed pants and stares out the window, watching the younger kids play outside. He thinks of a child of his own, smiles at the thought, and follows after his students. He sits in the cafeteria, not the faculty lounge, with the brightest and perhaps most left-out kids. They remind him of Mike, and Max, and Will—Dustin and Lucas, the two goons he forgot to call last night ( _I’ll have to do it tonight, I know Dustin needed help with that paper_ ). In the meantime, he laughs with these kids and finishes the tomato soup Nancy made the night before.

  
In the evening, he sets his camera bag down on the big leather chair by the door. On the couch, Steve is sitting before his typewriter, punching keys madly. Nancy is perched at their little iron table with papers spread out before her, books stacked on the stool opposite. Jon breathes in the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and mint leaves. The city is bustling outside, but none of them can hear it anymore. He slowly leans down and grabs his camera. The picture is taken before they even realise he’s come home, but Jon is fine with that. Steve grins at the sight of him, but is too deep in work to properly greet him. Jon gives Nancy a quick kiss on the forehead and lets her be; that’s what’s best for now. He starts developing photos in that little closet by the door (they have no place to put their shoes now, but none of them mind; it’s just more empty space taken up).

  
At night, with the neon city lights gleaming through dew-covered windows, and the sounds of keys being pressed slowly dimming to nothing, the three of them find themselves drifting back toward the bed, which might be better called their home within home. Nancy is there first, sliding into the middle with a Stephen King novel open in her lap. Then Jon, who has his camera and cleaning equipment. Lastly, Steve joins them. Instead of sitting beside them he perches himself at the end of their bed with his guitar, strumming a soft song while they unwind. When the light is turned out, they each find their way back to one another; arms wound around torsos, noses pressed against cold cheeks, legs tangled together. Sleep comes, and so does a new day.


End file.
